A day in the life.

Photo by Julia Joppien on Unsplash

Writing is weird. Or rather, being a writer is weird.

No, that’s still not it. Being a person that writes, is technically a writer even if very few people read what I write, that wants to write books and to have people read them and to make money from people buying them is weird. It is a job that is not yet a job, that I need to treat like a job around my other two jobs, that doesn’t pay.

Becoming a writer is hard, and I understand why so many people give up. I often feel like giving up, finding some stable, yet unfulfilling-to-me job like finance, making a good living, and calling it a life. I love doing hair, the creativity of it, but my body will only allow me to do this for so long. I’m already on the verge of foot surgery, on not one, but two, feet. And the other thing I love, aside from hair and the beauty industry, is, and has always been, writing. I know I’ve talked about this before, but I don’t think I’ve talked about this part of it all.

But being an aspiring writer, even having two published books under my belt, is a weird, lonely, misunderstood thing. Writing, by nature, is a solitary task. Sure, you bounce ideas around, share tidbits, ask for feedback, but by and large, it is solitary by nature. When I published my first book, a book that I worked on for years, I self-published it, and the night I sent it off into the ether, submitting it for publication, I did so alone. I cried tears of relief, joy, pride as I did so, but realized later what a lonely thing it was- one of my biggest accomplishments to date, and there was no one there to celebrate with me. I don’t even think my husband was awake when I got home from my office to share the news with, and by morning, the excitement had already started to subside. When you buy a house, have a baby, start a new business, get married, there are so many ways people celebrate you and I don’t think I’ve ever felt lonelier than the night I published my first book. But again, that’s the nature of being a writer, a lot of what you do, you do it alone. There’s a reason why some of the most influential writers of all time lived alone, or had cabins, or were sad, lonely drunks. Sometimes you have to choose family or creating. Sometimes you get lucky- or work really, really hard to do both.

I cannot write in a crowd of people. I cannot write at a party, or on the couch while I watch a movie with my family. I write alone, which means having to choose between working towards a life goal, and my family and friends. Often, I put my writing aside to maintain the relationships in my life, because they are the most important thing, but it is a delicate balance. For people who’s writing is their job, they just “go to work.” They set time aside, go to their office or a coffee shop or wherever, and do their job, and people understand that they are working. But I currently have two jobs, and neither of them are writing, so I have to write when and where I can. I had a part time job that allowed me to write while I was on the clock, and that was awesome. I got to make a few extra dollars, and I would crank out a new essay or new chapter twice a week, at least, because for five hours a day, two days a week, I just had to be a body in a chair watching a parking lot, so I saw it as being paid to write. But since I don’t have that job anymore, I need to find ways to fit writing in somewhere in between all the other stuff.

And so again, it gets weird. I need to treat writing like a job, because the only way for it to be one is to do that, and people don’t really get it. To others, it’s a hobby. A passion project. Something I do for fun because it brings me joy- and that may all be true, but I do it all now for nothing so that one day it turns into something, and I think people have a hard time understanding that. A traditional job, you start at the bottom, or mid-level or whatever, and work your way up. People get that. Telling your friends and family you need to put in some extra hours so you can get a promotion makes sense, and the deadline, or interview creates a timeline. Saying, I can’t do that thing with you because I need to sit and write a chapter for a book that I hope some day will get an agent and then a deal and it could be fast or take a decade and who knows, doesn’t quite land the same. A job that isn’t a job that is a job.

I know someone that sold everything, moved into a camper van, so that she could write. The only way she could find to be able to focus on this one singular thing was to minimize financial obligations so that she didn’t have to work anymore than necessary, and to minimize distractions. She now has like, 18k subscribers to her Substack, multiple book deals, and this is now her job. And now, people understand that when she says she has to work, that it means sitting and writing. But it also means she doesn’t have to juggle being a bouncer and odd-jobs while cranking out essays at 4 am anymore. And that’s the dream. I’m not going to do anything as drastic as moving into a camper, but I get it. We only have so many hours in a day, and I have to choose what to do with them, and sometimes the thing that sits on the backburner is the thing that doesn’t pay the bills or get me exercise. This is why writer’s retreats exist, I suppose.

But I get why people give up. It is hard. It is exhausting. It is day after day of looking for time to write, but it has to be the right time, when your brain is in a writing mood, and that isn’t always at the time that is available. If anything, that might be the most challenging part- writing is a very specific mood. Yes, mood. And if you aren’t in the mood, it doesn’t matter that you’ve set aside the hours of 7 am to 8 am to write. And then you have to produce, edit, and query. Attend workshops. Get feedback. Find magazines that take submissions and submit, if that’s the angle you want to go- magazines. But maybe it’s a good angle because maybe you send in an article to the right magazine and a lot of people read it and now people know who you are, even if you’d rather write stories than essays. Keep up with Publisher’s Marketplace. Research agencies and agents that might be a good fit. Send out more submissions. Try to get into book festivals. Keep getting rejected. Try more. But still find time to write. And to stay positive. And try to keep up with some kind of social media because what agent or publisher wants work from someone that doesn’t have an audience already? If I could just get a new subscriber on occasion even, that might feel like a victory. And maybe if I spent more time learning how to master this app, I could, but I can’t because again, only so many hours in a day, and I could spend them writing, or trying to get readers, and one feels just as important as the other- a chicken and an egg. Just trying to be a writer is a full-time job and I get why people give up. Because at least once a week I want to.

But I won’t. But for the love of God, if you don’t already subscribe to my page, please do so here.

I don’t know what I’m trying to say here, honestly. I’m sure there are people that write just for fun, because they love the way it feels when the words leave their brains and create a story on paper, but they are content to just write for themselves. That is not me. I love the writing, the entire process of it, the way it feels, the sounds, the way I have notes and notes and notes in my phone of sentences I want to use one day, or essays I want to write, or things to add into a book that exists only in my brain so far. But I am not content not sharing it- maybe it’s vanity- the desire to have something that lasts longer than this body. Art. Books. I like creating things that are the reason libraries and museums exist. Aside from art and music, how much of it really matters anyway? So yeah, maybe it is vanity, or a grasp for immortality, but I write to share. And I want it to be a job, and I want people to understand that everything I do between now and the day it is my job, is part of climbing a different type of ladder, and that it is more than just a hobby, even if, technically, that’s what it looks like right now. All these essays, the scraps of paper tacked to a bulletin board with ideas- these are my overtime hours for my third job that I have yet to receive a regular paycheck from. So, thank you for your patience.